January 18, 2018

I am a Bandcamp apologist; for years I have been promoting the site as by far the best way to buy music in this streaming age. I have criticized Spotify at length, and will continue to boycott it and encourage others to do the same. If you are new to this debate: simply, Spotify pays musicians practically nothing, but with Bandcamp the artists get paid by far the most of any other digital platform.

My primary--and really only--gripe with Bandcamp is the inability to make and share playlists. Playlists are one of the primary reasons people pay money to Spotify (and ignore the fact that the subscription fees they are paying go to a corporation and not to artists).

That brings me to PlayMoss- one can make Bandcamp playlists! Not only Bandcamp, but also YouTube, SoundCloud and just about all other streaming services. And you can mix and match. The service can be free, but the free playlists are only a maximum of 15 songs. But for less than 2 $/€ per month, you can pay for an upgrade that enables unlimited length of playlists and unlimited sharing/embedding. I paid the fee immediately to support these programmers who have created something I have desired for years. (Apparently Playmoss has been around for a couple years but sadly I never noticed.)

I will be using PlayMoss extensively on this blog moving forward (assuming it works as well as it initially appears). I will attempt to stick to Bandcamp tracks, as there are direct links to purchase the songs, and at times limits to how many times a user can stream a track (this would be the biggest and most important upgrade to Spotify and other streaming services; to require purchase of a song or albums after playing it a few times). If the song is not available on Bandcamp, I'll then use YouTube. (Because even without a subscription, artists they get paid a higher amount per play on YouTube than Spotify.)

Final comment before my first PlayMoss/Bandcamp playlist: Bandcamp would be wise to go ahead and buy Playmoss, or incorporate the same feature into their own website. Bandcamp has been around long enough that they have the resources to add a playlist function, and in my opinion would lead to even more money for the artists, and for Bandcamp itself.

My first playlist is my top 25 songs of 2017, but only those that are available on Bandcamp. This list is similar to my top 25 albums of 2017 blog post, but with a few additions to replace the albums that are not on Bandcamp.

Because this is new, I would love feedback. Specifically, I am curious if all the songs play, if any skip ahead, etc.